TED REED and ANA SANTIAGO Herald Staff Writers

When Vivian Mannerud found out last week from television that her business had suddenly been declared illegal, she was neither surprised nor saddened.

In the 13 years that Mannerud has owned and operated Airline Brokers Co., the oldest and largest of the two companies that arranged charter service between Miami and Havana, her operations have been curtailed a dozen times, by both the Cuban and U.S. governments.

So President Clinton's suspension of charter service to Cuba last Monday was far from unprecedented.

Mannerud spent the week consoling some of the approximately 3,000 Cuban Americans stranded in Cuba, and another 500 or 600 Cubans stranded in the United States.

She promised to get all of ABC's passengers home - most of them at no additional cost. By now, about half have been flown to third countries, such as Mexico, and returned to their homes on planes chartered by ABC or in seats that ABC purchased on other airlines, such as AeroMexico.

At the same time she was arranging the return of her passengers, Mannerud was working to set up a replacement business: a charter service from Miami to Cancun, with service to Havana on AeroMexico. Twice weekly service began on Friday.

C&T Charters, Mannerud 's only competitor, had made similar arrangements, with its flights going through Nassau.

"You have to be insane to be in this business," said Mannerud , 42. "It's so political. You're constantly watching what one government or another says in order to know what you will be doing the next day.

"It has been very confusing. I knew I had to bring my passengers back, and I am bringing them back. But I had to sit and wait while the policymakers sat down and tried to figure out what they should have done when they made the policy."

Mannerud was working nonstop last week to resolve the problems.

"When she decides on doing something, she goes in a straight line," said Marvin Verble, her husband since 1984. "She reminds me of a horse -- you can't stop her. I'd like to get her to stop working so hard."

ABC carried about 35,000 passengers last year, which was slow until restrictions on travel to Cuba were eased in October. Mannerud had expected to carry about 60,000 passengers this year.

She won't disclose recent results, but said revenues reached $4 million in 1992. That was a good year, partly because ABC had a contract with the U.S. Olympic Committee to transport U.S. athletes to Cuba for the Pan American games. In an average year, ABC's profits are about $200,000, she said.

Mannerud began ABC in 1982, following in the footsteps of her father, Fernando Fuentes -Coba, who operated a Miami-Havana charter airline called American Airways Charters from 1978 to 1982.

It operated as a contractor for travel agencies that had rights to fly exiles to Cuba. In 1979, the U.S. government expelled the travel agency Havanatur from Hialeah, declaring it was an instrument of Cuban intelligence. American Airways began working with another agency, Travel Services, but in 1980 it, too, was expelled from the country.

Cuba permitted American Airways to continue operating flights to Cuba, but the United States didn't. Fuentes -Coba was subsequently charged with trading with Cuba, found guilty in 1982, and sentenced to a year in prison. Rather than go to jail, he fled. Mannerud won't say where her father is, but he's believed to be living in Cuba.

"I started this thing after he was shut down, doing the same thing on a smaller scale," she said. "During the Carter administration, when American tourists could go to Cuba, he had 35 or 40 flights a month, and he made a lot of money."

Mannerud resembles her father, said Tom Cooper, who owns Gulfstream Airlines, a commuter airline. He has provided airplanes to both of them.

"Vivian is not only in the same business as her father but she is also . . . a very aggressive, very good business person who runs a good operation," Cooper said.

Added Izad Djahanshahi, owner of Airways International, another commuter airline in Miami: "She's a go-getter. She always wanted to be on top."

It's clear that her father has been the most enduring male presence in Mannerud 's life.

She recalls that when she was young and poor, her family would go to Perimeter Road at Miami International Airport and, for entertainment, watch jets take off and land. Fuentes -Coba would teach his daughters about the different types of aircraft, their manufacturers and their passenger capacities.

Mannerud 's sister Vilma, three years older, didn't pay much attention. But Mannerud did.

"The game was, the minute you saw the airplanes, you had to identify them," Mannerud said. "Then I would shout 'Super DC-8. Manufactured by Boeing. Four Rolls-Royce engines. Approximately 200 passengers.' And then I would add my own description: 'It looks like a pencil.'

"Daddy would laugh."

Djahanshahi not only leased Mannerud her first plane, a Cessna, but introduced her to her husband, Marvin Verble.

"He was one of my first three pilots," he said. "One day Vivian was there when he walked in, and when he left she said, 'Do you know anything about this guy?' and I said, 'I'll get you together,' and they've been happily married ever since."

Verble, who oversees ABC's operations at Miami International Airport, is Mannerud 's third husband. Her first marriage, right after high school, ended in divorce. Her second, in 1981, was to a Norwegian chief ship's engineer on the Sunward II, a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship where she was working as a purser.

The couple moved to New Orleans, but Mannerud returned to Miami in 1982 -- and kept his name -- after he died of a blood clot.

She returned to Miami to assist her mother, who was dying of a brain tumor, and to follow her father into business. With $30,000 im insurance money from Tom Mannerud 's death, Mannerud launched her company.

Mannerud was born to Cuban parents, but she thinks of herself as an American. She doesn't speak Spanish well and needs a map to find Cuban provinces. She hopes to retire in a few years to raise cattle in Arkansas. She enjoys country dances like the boot scoot. She contributes to the environmental organization Greenpeace.

Francisco Aruca, whose Marazul Charters once operated a competing charter airline and now sells charter packages, said Mannerud 's American perspective helps her.

"I have always found that what comes through in Vivian is that she was raised in the United States, and that she has an American component in her behavior," said Aruca, who is Cuban.

"She comes through as very fresh. It is a very American trait. You approach a problem with a certain innocence: You assume that everybody will play the game according to the rules. That doesn't mean Americans don't violate the rules, but most -- including Vivian -- approach problems differently."

Mannerud defines herself as a devout Catholic and humanitarian whose goal is "to feed those who are hungry regardless of whose fault it is." She said she expects to retire "when no one in Cuba is hungry."

"My basic feeling is that we as Americans should not contribute to suffering in Cuba," she said. "We should not blockade food and medicine and basic human needs. We've never done it anywhere else, even in Iraq."

Mannerud calls the shooting down of the Brothers to the Rescues airplanes tragic, but says, "We are all to blame."

"It could have been avoided if the U.S. law had been enforced, if Brothers to the Rescue and the flotilla hadn't been endangering peoples' lives," she said.

"But I also blame the pilots who shot them down. I blame parents for teaching their children anger and hatred. And I blame myself for not pushing harder for dialogue, for communication, with Cuba."

Mannerud acknowledges that her opinions may not be accepted by everyone in South Florida.

"I'm sure if I go to Kenosha, Wisc., people will agree with me," she said.